There is non-stop trade chatter surrounding the Golden State Warriors right now in light of Jonathan Kuminga's trade request, but with the way the team is playing recently. they may be giving general manager Mike Dunleavy an excuse to sit on his hands.
The Warriors are winners of 10 of their last 14 contests and are now four games over .500 for the first time all season. It seems like they are starting to turn a page, but all season long whenever the Warriors get on a run, they drop a game they should take and take a step backwards.
Warriors hot streak could make for quiet trade deadline
The fact of the matter is the Warriors should be winning these games. They are in a relatively soft part of the schedule and are in the middle of a lengthy home stand. Their performances recently should be expected, but the fact that it has followed such abject mediocrity is why it feels worthy of note.
Golden State still do need to make a trade. Not only do they need to trade Kuminga to rid themselves of that distracting saga, but they need to add a playmaker who can add something offensively beyond the star duo of Stephen Curry and Jimmy Butler.
They've been connected to some players who would do just that, but the Warriors would have to part with some significant draft capital to land someone like Michael Porter Jr. or Trey Murphy III. Dunleavy may not want to take a risk like that, and the way they're playing could give him justification to have a relatively quiet trade deadline.
If the Warriors continue to play like this and slowly make their way up the Western Conference standings in the coming weeks, one could easily see Dunleavy explaining away a quiet deadline as an endorsement of the guys currently on the roster.
He could make that case legitimately, arguing that now that De'Anthony Melton and Al Horford are back and are playing productive basketball, the offseason vision for the team is beginning to come into form.
The early mediocrity could be explained as a result of a tough schedule and injuries. While that's true to some degree, anyone who has watched this team the entire season knows they need to make some sort of move, allowing them to become more consistent and actually have a chance against some of the best teams in the Western Conference during a seven-game series.
Hopefully the Warriors will go out and make a major move, but if Dunleavy would prefer to sit on his hands, the team is giving him an excellent justification to do so.